The Republicans’ $3 Million Weekend in the Hamptons

EVERY few years the 1-percentiness of the Hamptons gets that much 1-percentier.

Sure, there are exclusive staples: P. Diddy’s white party; the Apollo in the Hamptons benefit (225 attendees who pay as much as $125,000 a table); and the Hampton Classic, Long Island’s answer to Royal Ascot.

But nothing says “I’m kind of a big deal” like attending one of the quadrennial presidential fund-raisers, which are the social events of the season for well-heeled Hamptonites willing to pay a local carpenter’s annual salary — or much more — to hobnob with a sitting or potential president.

Yet for one important subset of the East End political class, Democrats, there will be no big-ticket presidential soiree this year. There will be no beachside bragging rights (“I was telling Barack just last night”) and, perhaps as important, no chance to make a casual if expensive suggestion for lighter industry regulations, better campaign commercials or a tweak in his approach to Israel.

For now, they will have to be content with memories of soirees past: John Kerry playing “Brown Eyed Girl” under a tent with Jimmy Buffett, with the Atlantic Ocean providing gentle percussion; or the bacon-wrapped Montauk tuna that Daniel Boulud prepared especially for them, and which they washed down with the smooth tonic of Bill Clinton’s campaign poetry. Word is trickling out to local, and still-loyal, rich Democrats that President Obama will almost certainly skip the Hamptons fund-raising circuit this election year, leaving all the fun to supporters of his opponent, Mitt Romney, who heads to a trifecta of top-dollar fund-raisers here this weekend.

Mr. Romney is expected to pull in $3 million from an event at the Creeks, the estate of Ronald O. Perelman, the billionaire financier and Revlon chairman, where tickets range from $5,000 for lunch to $25,000 for a V.I.P. photo reception. Another will be held at the home of Clifford M. Sobel, an ambassador to Brazil under President George W. Bush, and a final dinner will take place at the Southampton estate of the billionaire industrialist David H. Koch, where the going rate for entry is $75,000 a couple and $50,000 a person.

Mr. Romney’s campaign seeks secrecy when it comes to its fund-raising events, but organizers suggested that these would not be the showstoppers of the Democratic events of yore. As one member of his finance team put it, “There’s enough interest in stopping Obama that you don’t need to hire entertainment and celebrity chefs.” Besides, the real estate should be entertainment enough.

At Mr. Koch’s estate, the guests will be treated to one-of-a-kind scenery as they wait for face time with a possible president. Tucked into the Southampton dunes, Mr. Koch’s home is valued at about $18 million by the real estate Web site Zillow, which reports that it has seven bedrooms and nine bathrooms. Its backyard is the sea.

But the jewel of the day is Mr. Perelman’s. With 9 fireplaces, 40 rooms and an expansive wine cellar, his estate makes the Koch spread look modest by comparison. Sitting on 57 acres, it was built for the painter Albert Herter in 1899, and when it last went up for sale in 1991 (for $25 million), The New York Times described it as “the largest and most spectacular estate in the Village of East Hampton, with more than a mile of frontage on Georgica Pond and a view of the Atlantic Ocean beyond.” That article also said that an American Conifer Society Bulletin — for tree enthusiasts — had called its grounds “the eighth wonder of the horticultural world” and “the most outstanding private conifer collection in the United States, a living work of art.”

Photo

Credit
GARY HOVLAND

Mr. Perelman’s representatives indicated that lunch on Sunday would be kosher, as Mr. Perelman keeps a kosher home, er, palace.

It is all a particular letdown for those Democratic Hamptonites who had become accustomed to the go-go days of the Clintons, who were happy to have the adulation, scenery and campaign cash here wash over them like warm late-summer waves. Their midterm 1998 fund-raiser drew the gamut of neighborhood celebrities: Steven Spielberg, Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger, to name a few.

“Where are the Clintons now that we need them in the Hamptons, vacuuming up money like it’s shells on the shore,” said Ken Sunshine, the public relations executive and Democratic fund-raiser, who has a house in Westhampton. Still, he confessed, “A lot of people are really bored out there and looking for stuff to do.”

Hopes had been raised by chatter of a late-August event featuring the president at Mr. Spielberg’s estate by Georgica Pond, but representatives for Mr. Spielberg and the Obama campaign insisted that no such thing had been discussed. There is talk about a visit by Joe Biden, but, well, this is a crowd accustomed to presidential-level service in all things — including presidential fund-raising.

Photo

There will be a lunch for Mitt Romney at Ronald O. Perelman’s East Hampton estate.Credit
Stephen Chernin/Reuters

Some local Democrats say they believe a factor in the president’s absence this year is a reluctance by the White House to pump out images of Mr. Obama mixing behind closed doors (or supersize hedges, as the case may be) with the 0.0001 percent of the nation’s wealthiest families as he seeks to paint Mr. Romney as the candidate of the rich. One prominent fund-raiser said the message from Team Obama about the Hamptons has consistently been that “it creates the wrong image,” because the campaign does not want to be associated with a “community that has an elite image.”

That has brought fresh rounds of indignation from Obama mega-donors, several of whom said in interviews that it was part of the broader push-pull dynamic between Mr. Obama and the elite class of political financiers whose industries he has at times punched with one hand while seeking a donation with the other.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, because there is no upside in picking a public fight with the White House, more than one of them noted the president’s recent appearances with Anna Wintour at the West Village home of Sarah Jessica Parker and with all manner of celebrities at the Hollywood Hills mansion of George Clooney.

Alan Patricof, a private equity pioneer and longtime Democratic fund-raiser, said in an interview from his East Hampton estate that he understood the campaign’s concern.

Photo

David H. Koch will be the host of a dinner for Mr. Romney this weekend.Credit
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

“It’s a mixed blessing whether you do something here or not,” Mr. Patricof said. “The Hamptons do have an image that’s hard to break, and people can be chastised for accessing this, as much as they can be complimented for being successful and generating a lot of interest.”

As if to illustrate the very image Mr. Obama’s team would certainly want to avoid, a large contingent from liberal groups including Occupy Wall Street, Move On, Greenpeace and the Long Island Progressive Coalition say they plan a protest for Sunday, with the focus primarily on Mr. Koch’s house.

“We want everyone who’s not arriving by helicopter to have to pass us by and be shamed by us,” said David Segal, a spokesman for the Long Island group. He said the groups would not go onto Mr. Koch’s property. “We’re really hoping to be at the base of his driveway on the road there,” he said.

And that’s a good thing over all, given the lengths of the driveways involved.

The Democrats’ presidential-year doldrums were made all the more painful by reports that one of the Romney events was to be given at the home of Mr. Perelman, one of whose ex-wives was the Democratic fund-raiser and Clinton ally Patricia Duff.

Photo

Clifford M. Sobel will also give a Romney fund-raiser this weekend in the Hamptons.Credit
Eraldo Peres/Associated Press

There is the crux of the matter, and it goes at something deeper for Mr. Obama: propelled four years ago by small donors swept up in the drama of his candidacy, Mr. Obama did not have to build the same sort of relationships with the mega-donors of Hamptons society that the Clintons learned to court early on.

“I think they had a lot more relationships out here that were more embedded and closer, and it just was seen like a natural thing to do because a great part of their constituency was out here,” said Mr. Patricof, who has given Hamptons fund-raising events for the Clintons and, in 2004, for Mr. Kerry.

It is now well established that Mr. Obama has what can best be described as a dysfunctional relationship with the Wall Street segment of his party, which has at times found itself crosswise with his rhetoric about their industry, not to mention his legislative moves to tighten regulation. Naturally some of that frustration has headed east in the overheads of their Gulfstreams.

And among the longtime conservative stalwarts listed as hosts of the Sunday events (Mr. Koch, Lewis M. Eisenberg, Wayne L. Berman, Woody Johnson) are others, most hailing from finance, who, according to campaign filings, have previously donated to Mr. Kerry, the Clintons and, in one case, John Edwards.

“The Republicans are super-energized out here,” said Andrew Sabin, the precious-metals magnate and a host of the event at Mr. Perelman’s house, who cited the weekend’s $3 million figure. “And they’re getting a lot of interest from Democrats. But a lot of Democrats are afraid to tell you where they are.”

Neither campaign would comment for this article. And neither would Mr. Perelman — who stayed an independent even as he became a Clinton booster — agree to an interview. But in a statement, he said: “Mr. Romney is a longtime good friend. I was asked if I would open my home and I am happy to do so. I think the governor will continue to be an effective powerful leader.”

Obama-supporting, Hamptons-based Democrats may eat their hearts out over it all nonetheless, but they said they would live to donate huge sums another day.

“We won’t take it personally,” said Robert Zimmerman, a Democratic National Committeeman and prominent party fund-raiser with a home in Southampton. “We can have overpriced lobster salad at our own homes.”